First Human Injected with Controversial Genetically Modified Genes

For the first time in history, a human has been injected with genes edited using the CRISPR-Cas9 method. [1]

The experiment took place on 28 October 2016, when a team of Chinese scientists, led by oncologist Lu You at Sichuan University in Chengdu, delivered the genetically modified (GM) cells into a patient with aggressive lung cancer as part of a clinical trial at the West China Hospital in Chengdu. [2]

To protect the patient’s privacy, the details of the trial have not been released; but Lu said the trial “went smoothly.”

CRISPR is a tool that allows scientists to edit genomes “with unprecedented precision, efficiency, and flexibility,”according to Gizmodo. Dr. Marco Herold, laboratory head of the CRISPR facility at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, explains it this way:

I am unsure about this whole subject. I think it is great how far science has come, but feel like we are playing God too much. It’s The Circle of Life. Things must come and things must go. But at the same time, if my mom were to have cancer and they could do something to help her of course I want to say yes. I don’t know if I will ever come to one decision on this subject. 😞

I concur on the ambivalence. The thing is…if we could trust these groundbreaking methods to be used only for the good of one and all…that is one thing. But…unfortunately, we can not depend on that and so, getting into the wrong “God complex” hands could be devastating. An impossible conundrum!